The New York State AFL-CIO Unleashes A Massive Educational Campaign Aimed At The Blatant Anti-Worker Agenda Of State Senators’ Jeff Klein & Craig Johnson
(ALBANY) - The 2.5-million-member New York State AFL-CIO has unleashed a massive educational campaign - the Labor Organization's first in-session initiative of its kind - that targets two State Senators "who've betrayed the trust, interests and well-being of Working Men and Women," State AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes has announced.
The State Labor Federation has coordinated a Day of Action leafleting campaign at train stations and various in-district sites to put individual State Senators, as well as the entire Senate on notice that their anti-Labor, anti-Working Person agenda will no longer be tolerated.
The New York State AFL-CIO has initially singled out State Senators Jeff Klein (34th District) and Craig Johnson (7th-District), announced Union Representatives, who added additional Senators across New York will be targeted in the coming days and weeks.
State AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes released the following statement: "We simply feel that enough is enough. The actions of these two Senators are symptomatic of what seems to be a fundamental change in philosophy in that chamber when it comes to protecting the overall well-being of New York's Working People. The actions of the Senators we are targeting have been particularly egregious because they have time and again portrayed themselves as 'friends and champions of the cause of Working Men and Women.' Nothing could be further from the truth. Senators Klein and Johnson have consistently betrayed the same individuals they claim to care so much about. They've shown a blatant disregard for the concerns of all Working People. Whether it's been attacking public employee pensions, refusing to help New York's unemployed workers or failing to stand up to the governor when he shut down hundreds of construction jobs, there's a long line of broken promises and actions in the Senate that have targeted the Labor Movement. As a result, they have left many important Labor Priorities disregarded or floundering. It is still my sincere hope and goal to improve our relationship with the Senate leadership and to advance the many important interests of the Labor Movement in doing so. However, after more than one and a half years the situation has gotten worse, not better, and it is time for us to take action rather than continue to imagine excuses."
Thousands of informational flyers have been distributed by hundreds of Union Members in each of the Senators' districts. Each flyer explained issues the Senators failed to deliver on, as well as actions taken that have hurt the cause of Working Men and Women.
Issues mentioned in the flyer included the Senators failure to: Standing up to the governor when he shut down hundreds of construction jobs; Standing up to the governor when he violated Public Employees Contracts; Reform of New York State's broken economic development system; Enactment of a Farm Workers Bill of Rights; and Increasing the state's unemployment benefit.
The State AFL-CIO also cited several stances taken by the two Senators in the past that are detrimental to the cause of Working People. As such, the flyers highlighted the following: Protecting a failed tax system that favors the privileged at the expense of Working People; Increasing the tax on Health Insurance; Siding with big corporations and against teachers and students to pass a Charter School Bill, with no real reform; Creating a new Tier V pension; and Attacking education by supporting an irresponsible property tax cap.
In addition to the leafleting, the next phase of the New York State AFL-CIO's campaign will also include phone calls to Union Members who live within the districts of the two targeted Senators, Union Representatives said.








































































